


summer 1994: disc 1, a-side

by ShowMeAHero



Series: lover, special edition [1]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gay Richie Tozier, Hurt/Comfort, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Pining, Post-IT (2017), Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-25 20:35:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21991549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShowMeAHero/pseuds/ShowMeAHero
Summary: “Talk to me,” Eddie says, as a firework explodes over their heads. It’s nearly one o’clock, now, and there’s trees everywhere, so it can’t be safe, but it’s beautiful. The exploding red lights shine off Eddie’s face, bringing out the flush of his cheeks in the stifling heat. “What’re you thinking?”“I just don’t want to lose you,” Richie tells him.“Why do you think you’re going to lose me?” Eddie asks. “Wait, do you mean— Me-me, or all of us?”“All of you,” Richie says, then pauses. “Uhh. I mean— That’s true. All of you. But also you, specifically.”“Why me, specifically?” Eddie asks.“Because you’re my best friend.” A purple firework explodes, crackling apart above them. Richie doesn’t know what it looks like; he just watches the lights flash off Eddie’s face, shining with sweat and color. “I’ve known you since we were babies. I love you.”
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Series: lover, special edition [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1583056
Comments: 30
Kudos: 140





	summer 1994: disc 1, a-side

**Author's Note:**

> I got this idea a few weeks ago, and I've been coming up with ideas and an outline and, finally, here we are. What we have here is a series in five parts, with a total of eighteen chapters — one chapter for each of the songs on Taylor Swift's _Lover_ album. They won't be in the order they are on the album, but in a special order done specifically for this series. That's why it's the **Lover, Special Edition** — or, **lover, special edition,** because I love my stylized lowercase.
> 
> Buckle up, guys. We're going on a journey of love and healing together.
> 
> Title taken from ["Cruel Summer"](https://open.spotify.com/track/1BxfuPKGuaTgP7aM0Bbdwr?si=d3cqnzeHS0-zrS0G6WpvYw) by Taylor Swift.

The Fourth of July is one of Richie’s favorite days of the year, especially the older he gets. He loves drinking cold beers in the Clubhouse with the Losers; he loves the parade that goes through Derry in the early afternoon; he loves the fireworks that go off all over town, all night. Richie loves most holidays, really, because they’re  _ fun  _ and everyone’s  _ happy  _ and that’s really all he wants, on a daily basis. It’s why he does what he does.

July 4th, 1994 is no different. The Losers have finally all turned eighteen, they graduated two months ago, and they’re enjoying their last summer in Derry as much as they can before they all go their separate ways.

In theory.

Richie hasn’t decided what he’s doing yet. He gets too nervous, when he thinks about it; he knows Eddie’s going to school in New York, so it makes  _ him  _ want to go to school in New York, even if that’s irresponsible. He doesn’t know what he wants to do with his life; he wants to make people happy, and he wants to be with Eddie. And the rest of the Losers, if he can, but they’re all going to completely different places and Eddie has to be his priority, since he’s stupid fucking in love with him.

So, when they’ve drank their beers and gone to the parade and watched the fireworks, and everyone’s gone home, Richie starts getting a little freaked out. He’s lying on his back in his bed, still fully clothed, staring at his darkened ceiling. His glasses and shoes are even still on. He knows he’s not going to sleep anytime soon, because he’s tipsy from beer and crossfaded from marijuana and panicked from trauma, worried that everyone’s going to abandon him and forget about him.

Richie exhales roughly without realizing how close he’d gotten to crying, the back of his eyes burning. He can’t sit in his room anymore, looking up at the stars that he and Stan stuck on the ceiling when he was nine. He  _ can’t.  _ It’s too rough of a reminder of what he’s about to lose.

He shoves himself to his feet. For a moment, he’s not sure what he’s going to do, but he knows, in the next moment. He always goes to the same place.

His first stop is the kitchen. Richie creeps through his dark, silent house, careful not to wake up his parents and piss them off. There’s a bottle of rum his mom forgot about that he keeps hidden under the sink, so he grabs it on his way out. His next stop is the backyard to drink the rum, which he does is under ten minutes before he gets his keys and hops in his truck.

The drive to Eddie’s house isn’t far, but, even deliriously emotional and cloudy-brained as he is right now, he knows he has to loop around the back way. He takes the scenic route, as Ben calls it, cuts down a back road through the woods near the place Richie told everyone that he broke his ankle when he was eight, and parks two streets away from the Kaspbrak residence. There, he takes a breath, then stumbles out of his truck.

He doesn’t even need to think about the path he needs to take. The Allens’ hedge is the tallest it’s been since 1987, but Richie picks his way through it anyways, hops their fence, and wriggles his way into the Kaspbraks’ side yard. The relatively-new fence Sonia had put in has a tall garden gate, but Richie’s arms are much longer than Eddie’s, and he can reach the lock at the top when he drags over the decorative stump the Murphys have next door. He knows Sonia put it up higher than his height on purpose, but he outfoxed her almost immediately.

He sneaks in through the garden gate and locks it carefully behind himself. He’s crossfaded, drunk and high, head fuzzy, but he’s done this so many times it’s muscle memory. There’s still a heap of small rocks and pebbles that Richie hid behind a tree in 1989; he grabs a handful and tosses one at Eddie’s window.

“Eddie!” he hisses loudly. The window’s about twenty feet up, and Richie’s only 6’2”, but he’s got a great arm and pretty good aim on Eddie’s window, after all these years. He throws another pebbles and says, slightly louder,  _ “Eddie!” _

Dim lamplight floods Eddie’s bedroom, and then his blinds get yanked up. Eddie’s in the window, squinting and frowning, curls a mess around his head. When he sees Richie, he visibly sighs before hauling the window up, too.

“What’re you doing, dipshit?” Eddie spits back down at him in a whisper. He looks over at his mom’s window, which is still blessedly dark, before glaring back down at Richie. “What the fuck?”

“But, soft!” Richie exclaims softly. “What light through yonder—”

_ “Shut up,”  _ Eddie hisses. “What the fuck do you want? I saw you two hours ago.”

“He speaks,” Richie replies, because he doesn’t know what else to do. He dumps the rest of the pebbles in his palm back to the pile and jogs up to stand right under Eddie’s window. If he has to talk about how he’s feeling again, he’ll cry, so he settles for quoting  _ Romeo and Juliet  _ instead. “Oh, speak again, bright angel—”

“Go  _ home,  _ Richie,” Eddie says. “I’ll see you  _ in the morning.” _

Richie looks up at Eddie and wonders how many more nights he has like this. He wants to come to Eddie’s window every night for the rest of his life, reciting Shakespeare, never getting too close so Eddie never needs to run away. Then he remembers, with a stab, that Eddie will be gone in two months, and he’ll never want to see Richie again. He bursts into tears.

“Richie,” Eddie says, sounding bewildered. “What did— Get in here, what’s going on?”

Richie, tears still streaming down his face and blurring his vision, leaps up and grabs the bottom branch on the tree. All his upper body strength comes from tree climbing; some of his lower body strength, too, but some of that comes from chasing Eddie around the track after his practices.

Which he also won’t get to go to anymore, because they’ve graduated and they’re all moving away.

Richie wipes at his face with his shirt. He’d been too drunk to care before, but it’s fucking  _ hot  _ outside, and his shirt is drenched in sweat. His palms are so sweaty he has to stop to wipe them off on his thighs.

“Be careful,  _ be careful,”  _ Eddie whispers to him, holding a hand out and reaching for him. Richie reaches, but his wet hand slips off the branch; Eddie just barely catches him by the wrist, falling halfway through the window himself before catching his waist on the sill. A branch slaps against Richie’s face as he falls, lashing against his chest.

“Eds,” Richie manages to say. Eddie drops his other hand down and wraps it under Richie’s arm, hauling him up and in. Richie catches himself on a branch and makes the last jump, sending them both shooting backwards onto Eddie’s bed with surprising force.

“What,” Eddie says lowly, “the  _ fuck  _ was that, Rich?”

Richie holds the sluggishly bleeding slash on his face and says, with tears in his eyes, “I’m scared.”

Eddie looks even more confused, and now he looks a little frightened, too. He glances back to his still-open window. “Scared? Scared of what?”

Richie shakes his head, a sob coming out of his throat. He drops his hands to his laps and looks at the blood smeared across his palm. Eddie takes his hand and examines it closely.

“It’s not It, is it?” Eddie asks in a soft voice. He looks up into Richie’s eyes with those big goddamn deer eyes of his and says, “Richie?”

Richie shakes his head again. Eddie reaches up to cup his face in his hand, examining the scratch from the branch. It caught his t-shirt and ripped it there, too, scratching his chest, and Eddie finds that before Richie even does.

“You’re freaking me out,” Eddie says. Richie pulls away from Eddie and buries his face in his hands, hunched over himself, shoulders drawn inward. Eddie puts a hand hesitantly in the middle of Richie’s back, and he shudders. “Hey, Richie, I need you to talk to me or I’m gonna totally freak out, you’re totally freaking me out—”

“Eds,” Richie says through his thick throat. He tries unsuccessfully to clear it before rasping, “It’s fine. I’m sorry.”

Eddie doesn’t respond. When Richie lifts his head, it’s to find Eddie staring at him incredulously. After a moment, brow furrowed, he demands, “What the fuck are you sorry for? What did you  _ do?” _

Richie motions to his own chest, then starts crying all over again. Eddie sits down beside him, briefly, then gets up again, unable to stop moving; it just makes Richie bury his face in his hands. “I’m so scared, Eddie.”

“What’re you scared of?” Eddie asks. “Did somebody hurt you? Did they follow you here? I have a bat in the closet you can use and I can take a kitchen knife—”

“Holy shit,” Richie says, almost choking on air. “Eds, don’t kill someone, fuck—”

“Then what’s going on?” Eddie demands again. “Richie, I swear—”

“I just—” Richie says, before he cuts himself off with a hitch of breath. He shakes his head, presses the heels of his hands to his eyes, and says, “I’m so scared of everything. I feel like we’re all so old now and it all feels like so much and I’m terrified of September.”

It doesn’t entirely make sense, the way it comes out of his mouth. There’s more he wants to say that he won’t let fall out of his mouth, about how terrified he is of losing Eddie, specifically; he’s kept that trapped tightly in his throat since he was little. He can do it for a few more months.

Eddie rubs his back, slowly, his hand skimming up, then down, then up again. After a minute, he says, “I know. I get it.”

Richie turns his head, and Eddie draws him in, pulling him in to hold. He’s so soft, in his threadbare tank top and pajama shorts out of deference to the heat. The air outside is stifling, but Eddie has a bunch of fans scattered all over his room, blowing breezy air around and ruffling their hair. Richie wraps himself up in Eddie, lets Eddie rock him a little on the mattress. They’re both eighteen, and Richie’s nearly six-foot-three, almost all limbs, while Eddie’s a strong, compact five-foot-nine, but Eddie still tips them sideways a little on his childhood bed to bury his face in Richie’s hair.

“It’s gonna be okay,” Eddie tells him. “You’ll take your year off and decide what you want to do. Maybe you’ll even go to New York, right?”

He’s not entirely sure why Eddie would ask him that. He’s hazy, right now, so he wants to think it’s because Eddie wants him to go with him, which must mean he loves him—

But, no. Nobody loves Richie. Not enough to stay, anyways.

“I’m so sorry,” Richie says, about nothing in particular. Eddie keeps rubbing his back for a moment before he pulls back with a jerk, grabbing Richie’s chin in his hand and yanking his face back around. “What the—”

“Your fucking face is bleeding, you dickwad,” Eddie reminds him. He all but leaps out of bed to pull his first aid kit out from underneath it. Digging through it, his head still turned down, he says, “You smell like alcohol, Rich.”

“I took some of my mom’s rum,” Richie confesses immediately. It’s just another fucking layer to the whole thing, and it makes tears well up in his eyes again. “I didn’t— I was just so sad, and I— I shouldn’t have done it, Eddie—”

“It’s okay,” Eddie tells him. He strokes his face again, careful to avoid his wound from the branch. “It’s okay, I promise. We’ll work it out. It’s going to be okay.”

“I’m sorry,” Richie repeats. It brings on another round of crying, where he repeats, “Eddie, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry—”

“Okay, Rich, I need you to breathe,” Eddie says. Richie looks at him wildly, but his chest  _ is  _ heaving and he’s sweating more than he should be and he’s  _ gasping. _ Eddie’s pupils look huge in his dark eyes, in the low lamplight. His face is all pale. “You remember my breathing exercises, right? Remember?”

Richie shakes his head, but he remembers them all. They’re muscle memory. He used to do them with Eddie all the time, and he’ll still do one now and then if Eddie has a moment and needs support. Eddie takes Richie’s scratched-up palm and presses it to his own chest.

“Breathe with me, Richie,” Eddie orders him. “I need you to do this, Rich. I need you to do this for me or you’re going to send yourself into shock or you’ll pass out from low oxygen to your brain and then I’m going to have to—”

“Also pass out from low oxygen?” Richie asks through the tears. Eddie smacks him lightly on the thigh with his other hand, earning a watery smile in return that Richie doesn’t even mean to give. It just falls out.

“Focus, jackass,” Eddie says. “I want to clean your face up and I can’t do that if you’re crying.”

Richie tries to look away, but Eddie pulls him back in again. With his fingers on his face, tipping him slightly to examine him while tears continue to stream down his cheeks, stinging the scratch, Eddie almost looks calm and collected. His hands are shaking, though. Richie abruptly feels terrible for ruining Eddie’s night, and he starts to stand.

“Where the fuck are you going?” Eddie demands.

“I don’t— Home, I guess,” Richie says. “I shouldn’t have—”

“Why’d you come?” Eddie asks. Richie stops, standing next to the bed.

“What?” Richie asks.

“Why’d you come here?” Eddie asks again. Richie frowns, brow furrowing.

“Because—” Richie starts, then stops. “I— I don’t know. You’re my best friend, Eddie, why do I ever come here? I like hanging out with you.” Richie’s heart starts pounding. Maybe Eddie’s asking because it’s strange. Maybe he’s being too obvious. It makes him even more terrified than he already had been. “Why? What— What’s wrong with that?”

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” Eddie tells him. “You’re my best friend, too, Rich. You can talk to me about anything, you know that. Right?”

Richie nods. “Yeah, and— The same goes for you. Anytime. Okay? You can tell me anything, I’m here for you.”

Eddie squints at him, looking frustrated for a moment before he lifts his hydrogen peroxide bottle. He talks about all the diseases Richie could get from letting bacteria from the tree sit in his open wounds for several minutes, but Richie’s not fully capable of listening right now. Instead, he lets his eyes slip shut. He listens to Eddie’s voice and lets it wash over him until he’s breathing normally and not crying anymore. The hydrogen peroxide stings on his face, his hands, and his chest, but Eddie smoothes bandaids over the cuts, and the pain goes away with his touch.

“I’m going to get you some water and bread,” Eddie says. “And then we’re going to go for a ride. How’d you get here?”

“Where are we going?” Richie asks, because he could only pick one part of Eddie’s declarations to focus on.

“We’re going to go for a ride  _ after  _ you eat,” Eddie repeats. “How did you get here, Richie?”

“I drove,” Richie says. Eddie makes a disapproving noise, and Richie looks out the still-open window, face heating up. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t do that again, Richie,  _ please,”  _ Eddie asks. “You’re going to hurt yourself, you’re going to— to get in an accident and go out the windshield and die, Richie, you  _ can’t—” _

“I won’t,” Richie tells him. Eddie looks at him for a long, hard moment. Then, he sneaks out of his room in his bare feet. Richie’s left alone with the open first aid kit and the bandage wrappers, so he cleans it all up, just because he knows Eddie won’t want to leave home without doing it. He may as well just do it for him. It’s just easier that way. Maybe Eddie will thank him for it, give him that little smile he sometimes does when Richie does a nice thing—

“You didn’t have to do that,” Eddie whispers, shutting his bedroom door softly behind himself with his heel. He hands Richie a glass of water and two slices of bread. “Finish these and we’ll go.”

Richie shoves a whole slice of bread into his mouth at once just to get Eddie to smile, which he does, rolling his eyes a little bit at the same time. He does the same with the second one before downing his water, ignoring Eddie’s admonishments that he’s going to make himself sick as he leaps up and says, “Alright, Spaghetti, where we going?”

Eddie shushes him before he double-checks to make sure his bedroom door is locked. Once he seems confident enough, he strips his tank top off over his head, and Richie almost chokes on his own tongue. He tips his head and lets his glasses slide to the end of his nose so he can’t see Eddie properly anymore.

“Do you want a shirt that’s not ripped, Rich?” the fuzzy-blob-that-is-supposedly-Eddie says.

“I don’t think your shirts are gonna fit me like mine fit you,” Richie comments. A shirt hits him in the face.

“Dickhead,” Eddie says. Richie strips his ripped shirt off and puts Eddie’s on instead. He’s right, it doesn’t fit properly, too small in the arms and the chest, too short for his torso, but he models it for Eddie anyways.

“I feel like a minx,” Richie tells him. Eddie shoves his feet into his shoes and grabs his fanny pack, strapping it across his waist.

“Okay, let’s go,” Eddie orders him. He points towards his window, then says, “Go slow this time, fuckface.”

“Eat shit,” Richie replies without heat as he swings himself back out the window and grabs the closest branch. His bandaged palms give him better traction than his sweaty palms, and he climbs easily back to the trunk, then shimmies his way down to the ground. Eddie follows, until he’s at the lowest branch, still too high up for him to jump without hurting his ankles. Richie turns and holds up his arms, and Eddie slips into them, same as always.

Richie sets Eddie on the ground, and Eddie says, “Thanks, Rich,” patting him on the arm and sending Richie’s one brain cell spiralling from the touch. “Good thing you’re so big.”

Richie’s entire brain short-circuits, so he jerks his thumb backwards and says, “I parked on Maplewood.”

“Of course you did,” Eddie says, because he knows as well as Richie does that that means they have to climb over the fence and through the hedge to avoid being seen by Eddie’s neighbors. Despite his grumblings, he leads Richie out his garden gate and back the way Richie came. When he finds his truck parked crookedly on Maplewood, he just hands over his keys.

“Sorry,” Richie says again.

“You’re not going to do it again,” Eddie says, more statement than question. Richie nods anyways as he gets in the passenger seat. The radio’s on, when Eddie starts the car, even though Richie doesn’t remember it being on when he drove over. He doesn’t comment on that fact.

“Where are we going?” Richie asks. Eddie leans over him to roll down his window for him, never once taking his eyes off the road.

“To the common,” Eddie says. Richie feels abruptly nauseous, so he looks out the window at the stars far above Derry. Bangor’s the closest big city for a while, and it’s not even that big, so there’s still so many stars filling the sky. “It’s the closest park.”

“What time is it?” Richie asks.

“You’re full of questions,” Eddie replies. He leans in and checks the truck’s dim clock. “It’s past midnight, Rich.”

“Happy fifth of July,” Richie says. “I made it.”

“You made it?” Eddie asks. “Made it to what? Tuesday?”

Richie shakes his head. He’s not sure what he means.

“Are you talking about that stupid poster?” Eddie demands. “You know that wasn’t real. He was just trying to fuck with you.”

“That doesn’t make it any less real, Eddie,” Richie says tiredly. “Is the leper any less real because Pennywise did it to you?”

“Don’t—” Eddie starts, then stops.

“What, don’t say his name?” Richie asks. He lifts his head to look at Eddie again, but Eddie doesn’t look back, eyes still fixed on the road. “What’s he gonna do, come grab my ankle and suck me back down the sewers?”

“I don’t know!” Eddie exclaims. “Maybe! He could!”

“He won’t,” Richie says. “He wants to scare us. That wouldn’t scare me.”

Eddie’s quiet, for a moment. He doesn’t shoot a response back quickly, and it makes Richie a little more nervous than he had been.

“What does scare you?” Eddie asks, eventually. He pulls up near the Derry town common and parks on the side of the road. Richie stares out the open window for a moment before closing his eyes. “You don’t—”

“I don’t know,” Richie says, then immediately adds, “Sorry, that was a lie. I’m… I think I’m just…” He looks back to Eddie, backlit by the streetlights and the headlights of passing cars, the last stragglers heading home after their Fourth of July festivities. “I’m not scared of dying. I’m more scared of— of being alone.”

Eddie stares back at him. He turns off the radio; then, after a beat, he turns off the truck entirely. He takes Richie’s hand over the center console in the darkness and the small-town quiet. When he breaks the silence, it’s to say, “You’ll never be alone, Richie.”

“I will,” Richie tells him.

“What are you—”

“Everyone’s leaving,” Richie says. He hiccups, and then the words are flowing out of his mouth like water from a tap. “Everyone’s going to leave, Bill’s going to Seattle and Bev’s going to Philly, you’re— you’re going to  _ New York—” _

“You can come with me,” Eddie interrupts him. “Or— Or any of us. You could come. Mike hasn’t decided where he’s going yet, either, you could—”

Richie starts really crying all over again, burying his face in his hands, pulling free from Eddie’s hold. Eddie’s hand lands square in the center of his back, rubbing softly.

“You can come,” Eddie whispers. Richie shakes his head, because he  _ can’t.  _ He’s stupid in love with Eddie, and he’s pretty much sewn to Eddie’s heels like his shadow. If he goes to New York with him, Eddie won’t be able to— to flourish and meet girls and do all the things college guys are supposed to do. Things Richie can’t do, because he doesn’t want to talk to girls or go to college. He just wants to be with Eddie and make people laugh, and he’s not allowed to have that, apparently.

“I can’t,” Richie tells him softly. Eddie keeps rubbing his back for a moment before he pops open the driver’s side door and gets out of the truck. Richie hesitates, then follows him, after a moment. He stays attached loyally to Eddie’s heels all the way to a vending machine across the street from the common. His face glows in the blue light while he looks over the snacks. “What’re you doing?”

“Getting us a picnic,” Eddie says, brow furrowing. “Do you know if gummy peach rings have actual peach in them?”

“How the fuck should I know?” Richie asks. He wipes at his wet eyes, drying his face on the hem of Eddie’s shirt. Eddie smacks at him. “You can’t have sugar after ten.”

Eddie pauses, then says, “Fuck it,” and puts his quarters into the machine. He gets himself a Hershey dark chocolate bar, then looks Richie over for a moment before he selects a Skor bar for Richie. Shoving a fistful of quarters into his hand, he pushes Richie to the vending machine for drinks and says, “Get me juice.”

“Juice it is, my liege,” Richie says. Eddie smacks him on the chest, smiling at him in the glowing lights of the machines. When he slides one machine down, he finds Eddie’s favorite orange juice brand easily. He gets a Mello Yello for himself and rolls it in his hand, tossing it around and shaking it up so he won’t have to open it right away.

“Knock it off,” Eddie scolds him. He presses their candy, plus a few bags of Reese’s Pieces, into Richie’s arms, too. “Back to the truck.”

Eddie jogs back off towards the truck, but Richie follows at a slower pace. The huge, looming shape of Paul Bunyan haunts his every step; he can’t stop throwing frightened looks in its direction. When he was a kid, he’d found Paul Bunyan to be almost like— weirdly hot. Masculine and strong and just— manly. Because he likes men. And he’s a man. And—

_ Your dirty little secret,  _ Pennywise’s voice echoes in his ears, and he comes to a slow halt. Staring up at Paul Bunyan in the after-midnight darkness, his arms full of snacks, he feels like he’s thirteen again.  _ Truth or dare, Richie? You don’t want anyone to choose truth, do you? _

“Richie?” Eddie asks, and Richie jumps, nearly out of his skin, before stumbling backwards. He trips, sending the snacks and drinks across the grass as he falls on his back. He looks up at Paul Bunyan with terror, feeling like he’s thirteen again and Paul’s going to come at him with his axe and split him in half. “Oh, fuck, Richie—”

“Don’t,  _ don’t,”  _ Richie gasps, turning his face away from Paul Bunyan, hiding in his arms. Eddie grabs him by the shoulders and tries to help him stand, but Richie shakes his head furiously, refusing to move.

“Richie, hey, you’re okay,” Eddie tells him. “You’re okay.”

“He’s here,” Richie says, desperately. He looks back up at Paul Bunyan, terrified, but he hasn’t moved and Pennywise isn’t there. There’s nobody sitting on Paul’s shoulders; he’s a solitary figure, outlined against the moonlight. “I— I don’t—”

“He’s not here,” Eddie tells him firmly. He looks over his shoulder, just to be sure, but when he doesn’t see anything, he drops his attention back down to Richie. “Did you see something? Did you see a person over there?”

“No, no, I didn’t—” Richie says, then stops, taking a deep breath. “I just remembered something. I don’t know. I thought I heard him.”

“He’s not here,” Eddie repeats. “It’s gone. I promise, Rich, It’s gone.”

_ You can’t promise that,  _ Richie thinks.

“Okay,” Richie says out loud. He lets Eddie help him to his feet, brushing him off and checking him over in the low light to make sure he’s not hurt any further. Luckily, none of their drinks busted open, but Richie’s Skor bar did snap in half when it hit the ground.

“We don’t have to stay here,” Eddie tells him. “Why didn’t you say anything, dumbass? We don’t have to go anywhere you don’t want to be. You never fucking tell me  _ anything—” _

“I’m sorry,” Richie cuts him off, before he can really rev up. He’s too tired to argue tonight. He just wants to be with Eddie, really. That’s all. “I’m just freaked out.”

“It’s okay to be freaked out, Rich,” Eddie tells him. “I’m freaked out, too. We all got freaked out. I just want you to talk to me.” Eddie’s quiet for a moment as the two of them get back in the truck. When Eddie starts it up, he says, “Will you talk to me?”

“Yeah,” Richie says.

“Is it okay if we go to the Barrens?” Eddie asks.

“Yeah.”

Eddie drives like he walks, which is to say Eddie drives incredibly aggressively and it turns Richie on. Instead of watching Paul Bunyan shrink into the distance, he watches Eddie as he drives Richie’s truck. He wishes, deep in his chest, that they could keep this forever.

They drive all the way to the top of the cliff, a long and twining path through the trees. Richie just listens to the music on the radio, his eyes on Eddie the whole time.

Eddie drives them almost to the edge, until they’re far enough out of the tree line that they can see the stars without too many obstructions. He parks backwards so the truck bed hugs the edge, then turns to Richie. He cuts the headlights, casting them in darkness. There are so many rules Richie’s come up with to keep himself from touching Eddie, or wanting Eddie, or loving Eddie. Richie’s love for Eddie is just the same as those rules: unbreakable. They’ll both stay just as secret, too.

When they lay down in the truck bed, their heads pillowed on a sleeping bag Richie keeps in the back of the truck when he needs to sleep there instead of inside his parents’ house, Eddie takes his hand again, even though they’re both clammy with sweat. Richie tears open a Reese’s Pieces bag with his bandaged hand to avoid letting go.

“Talk to me,” Eddie says, as a firework explodes over their heads. It’s nearly one o’clock, now, and there’s trees everywhere, so it can’t be safe, but it’s beautiful. The exploding red lights shine off Eddie’s face, bringing out the flush of his cheeks in the stifling heat. “What’re you thinking?”

“I just don’t want to lose you,” Richie tells him.

“Why do you think you’re going to lose me?” Eddie asks. “Wait, do you mean— Me-me, or all of us?”

“All of you,” Richie says, then pauses. “Uhh. I mean— That’s true. All of you. But also you, specifically.”

“Why me, specifically?” Eddie asks.

“Because you’re my best friend.” A purple firework explodes, crackling apart above them. Richie doesn’t know what it looks like; he just watches the lights flash off Eddie’s face, shining with sweat and color. “I’ve known you since we were babies. I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Eddie tells him. “That’s why I’m not going anywhere. Even if you don’t come to New York with me, I won’t just abandon you, Richie. I’m going to call you all the time. I’ll give you my address, you can write me letters. You can come visit anytime you want to, Rich, I mean it. I don’t want to lose you, either.”

Eddie squeezes his hand, so Richie says, “I’d never leave you. You’re never going to lose me.”

“Then why don’t you believe me when I tell you that?” Eddie asks.

_ Because you don’t know everything,  _ Richie says.  _ Because I’m in love with you so I’m never going anywhere. And you don’t love me so you need to move on. Everybody does. Fucking obviously. _

“I don’t know,” Richie says. Eddie will just say that all of it isn’t true, because he has to. Because he doesn’t understand. “I just don’t. My brain can’t.”

Eddie rolls onto his side. Richie ignores the stars and the fireworks and the summer heat to keep watching Eddie in the truck bed. He does the same, shifting onto his side, still clutching Eddie’s hand in his. He wants to say something, to say  _ anything, _ so Eddie would understand. The thing is, though, if Eddie understands, they’re  _ both  _ fucked. It’s self-preservation as much as it’s protecting Eddie. They can’t be gay. Richie can’t be gay, Eddie can’t be gay, they just— They  _ can’t.  _ It’s not allowed.

A tight pressure on Richie’s hand brings him back into his own head, and Eddie’s squeezing the life out of him. Richie feels his finger bones grinding together in the back of his hand, but he doesn’t let go, clinging to Eddie in return. He lifts a few Reese’s Pieces up with his other hand, and Eddie grins. He opens his mouth and lets him slip them in.

He’s not allowed to say anything. He’s not allowed to love Eddie.

“I’m never going to leave you,” Eddie says. “Not on purpose. Richie, if a week goes by where we don’t say something to each other, then I’ve died, alright? I’ll always be your friend. Even if we’re separated and I’m mad at you for some stupid bullshit. And I know that we, like, don’t talk about shit. I know not talking about shit is your M.O., I get it. But I just want you to know I’m there for you, man. Alright?”

Richie nods vigorously, then bursts into tears again.

“Oh, for the love of God,” Eddie says, but he has a little smile on his face and his eyes are wet, too, in the light of another crimson firework, painting his face blood-red. Richie smiles back at him through his tears, overwhelmed by everything Eddie’s just thrown at him.

“I love you,” Richie says, “man.” Only one second passes in between  _ I love you  _ and  _ man,  _ just one heartbeat. He hopes Eddie doesn’t notice it.

“I love you, too, Rich,” Eddie says. “Yeah— Dude, it’s fine, don’t mention it—”

“You’re such a dork,” Richie tells him.

“Oh, fuck off.”

“Should I make a declaration?” Richie asks. “Promise to never leave your side, for richer for poorer?”

“For as long as we both shall live, you insufferable fuckhead,” Eddie says. Richie wants so desperately to kiss the smile off his face, so, instead, he shoves at Eddie’s shoulders. Wrestling him is touching him, even if it’s not the kind of touching he wants. It’s the only kind he’s really allowed, so he does it. He pins Eddie back, sending Reese’s Pieces skittering everywhere in the truck bed. Eddie shrieks, shoving back at him and pulling Richie’s arms behind his head so he can get him in a chokehold.

When they settle again, Richie’s head is on Eddie’s chest. Eddie reaches up, threading his fingers through Richie’s tangled mess of hair, working knots out of the curls. It’s like they just accidentally ended up that way, not on purpose. So, that’s okay. That’s fine.

“You okay?” Eddie asks.

“I’m okay,” Richie says. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

If Richie says  _ No, I’m not,  _ then Eddie will ask why, and Richie will have to tell the truth. He can’t lie. He promised he wouldn’t, so he just doesn’t say anything at all. There are some secrets he has to keep if he wants to keep Eddie, too. He doesn’t want to, but he has to.

Richie sits up, and Eddie sits up with him.

“For whatever it’s worth, I love you,” Richie says again. It’s the hardest, worst thing he’s ever had to say, because it’s only partway true.

Eddie grins up at him. “I love you, too.”

And that’s it. The fireworks end, and they both start yawning. Richie sobers up. They keep talking until the rays of dawn start threading through the night sky. Richie falls asleep with his head on Eddie’s chest again, and he’s woken up a couple hours later by Eddie himself so he can drive them home. Eddie drives them back to Richie’s house first.

“Do you want to go back in?” Eddie asks, and Richie shakes his head. “Okay. You don’t have to.”

They leave Richie’s truck on the curb. Eddie gets Richie’s bike where it’s hidden in the mostly-dead bushes along the side of the house. When Eddie hops on the bicycle, Richie hops on the back, standing on the pegs he’d put on for Eddie when they were still little. He wraps his arms around Eddie’s chest, feels the sweat and burning heat of his body like it’ll be the last time, because he’s never sure when it really will be. The humid, dewy breeze is nice on the few parts of his sticky skin that it reaches, but he’d overheat and get heatstroke a thousand times before he’d let Eddie go.

They reach the Kaspbraks’ house too quickly. Eddie hides Richie’s bike with his own before they help each other climb back up the tree outside Eddie’s window in the daylight of morning. He’d left his fans humming, so the room’s still got a slight draft moving around. Richie sprawls out on the floor first.

“Power nap?” Richie asks. Eddie smiles at him before laying down beside him. They’re not touching, too hot and uncomfortable to hold each other again in the stuffy room, but their heads are side-by-side. After a long while, Richie closes his eyes. It’s only then that Eddie takes Richie’s sweaty hand in his again, and the two of them swelter together on the floor until they fall asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can (and should!) talk to me on Twitter at [@nicolelianesolo](https://twitter.com/nicoIodeon)! I'm currently taking commissions there!

**Author's Note:**

> You can (and should!) talk to me on Twitter at [@nicolelianesolo](https://twitter.com/nicoIodeon)! I'm currently taking commissions there!


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